If you really get interested in the cable cars and how they got to be where they are today, the big question which will bug you is could a better job have been done in 1954 when the system was severely truncated.

The pattern of piecemeal abandonment had already started in 1942 with the city approved loss of Sacramento & Clay Sts., the Castro St. line, and the counterbalance operation on Fillmore St. Clearly what motivated the MSRy. more than anything else was the money-losing caused by 2-man operation. Granted the cables were slow and mechanically complicated but worse they were inherently 2-man.

Shift to 1954 and you can see the pro-cable faction led by Mrs. Klussmannn were up against downtown interests more of a problem than the cost of running a larger cable car network. The DPW wanted to one-way all the streets south of California(starting with Pine and Bush) and various powers(like Hilton and Macys)wanted the cable cars off O'Farrell St.

If you try to lay out some acceptable to downtown re-route of the O'Farrell, Jones & Hyde line it quickly becomes apparent there is no obvious solution. And any route change would have been expensive. Interestingly and in retrospect if the downtown powers could have seen the future and the profound deterioration of the Tenderloin they might have reconsidered their utter commitment to the auto. Cable cars and their concomitant tourist crowds might have scuttled the downfall of the 'Loin into the SF designated s**thole.

The pro cable folks overestimated their strength and underestimated the downtown juggernaut. Even if they had won in 1954 the controversy would have re-emerged again and again. Perhaps they should have compromised to the extent of pressing City Hall to have the Cal Cable slot reconstructed as far as Fillmore, the line's original terminus. There is room for another cable on the sheaves at Washington & Mason left over from the Sacramento line, which required 2.